The company behind your bathroom faucet wants to water your lawn

It’s easy to think of home water use happening in just a few places: sinks, showers, toilets, and washing machines. But for the average home, up to a third of water usage actually occurs outside, irrigating plants, vegetable gardens, and thirsty lawns.

Moen, one of the leading indoor faucet brands, is turning its attention to all that outdoor irrigation with a new line of smart sprinkler controllers, soil moisture sensors, and usage monitors. After focusing primarily on the kitchens and bathrooms of North American homes for more than half a century, the company is now thinking more broadly about water use wherever it happens.

Its new devices, which have just been released, include a Smart Sprinkler Controller and compatible Smart Wireless Soil Sensors, all of which connect to a smart home app the company has developed for monitoring water usage and leaks inside the home. The new devices allow users to track and schedule outdoor watering, set automatic watering based on soil sensor data, and specifically target watering to individual zones in yards.

Moen calls this a Smart Water Network, and it’s a water-centric expansion of the concept of the smart home, an app-controllable living space chock full of automated devices that aim to make life easier, more efficient, and more intuitive. The Smart Water Network is an attempt at tapping into the consumer demand for easier control, while also offering the potential of cost savings and a reduced environmental footprint.

“These new irrigation products can help consumers see exactly how much water they are using and where there is water waste, prioritizing water savings without even a second thought,” says Mason Hall, head of connected products for Moen’s parent company Fortune Brands Innovations. “Products like this can help consumers become more thoughtful by automating their routines and providing the data they need to make change.”

Timed watering and moisture sensor systems have existed for years, so Moen’s new line isn’t breaking entirely new ground. What the company is offering is an elevated approach to the industrial design behind these systems. Rather than running based on a clock or at the whim of a single sensor stabbed into the dirt, Moen’s system relies on multiple sensors spread across a yard, with temperature and moisture readings taken at three different depths below the surface. Combining this data with adjustable thresholds based on plant types and even local watering restrictions, the system can automatically ensure yards are getting enough, but not too much, water.

Amid a changing climate, tools like these can sometimes feel like spitting into fires at the end of the world. But they are effective. The EPA has found that irrigation control systems like Moen’s can save households an average of 15,000 gallons a year compared to clock-based watering systems. Beyond just making the straightforward transition from indoor water hardware to outdoor devices, Moen sees the move outside as a way to help cut down the impacts of human water consumption. “Our freshwater resources are finite, droughts are more prevalent, and more water restrictions are being put into place, making it essential for consumers to make changes now before there are long-lasting impacts on our environment,” Hall says.